


breaking

by punkdavekat



Series: the coolkid blues [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Depression, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 23:06:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5803876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkdavekat/pseuds/punkdavekat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can't afford weakness now, not when he needs you so badly</p>
            </blockquote>





	breaking

You'd like to say that getting in a relationship magically fixed the myriad ways you constantly fucked yourself over in life, but the world doesn't work that way.

You've been unhappy for a very long time. Thinking back on it, you can't remember an instance in your pathetic life where you'd had more than a fleeting moment of happiness. You were fucked in the head, you had always been fucked in the head, and it seemed like that was all youre ever going to be. 

Being with Dave made it different. Suddenly you had a sounding board; someone to push and prod at you until you'd unfurl from your mental fetal position, finally say something to someone and feel like life was a bit more bearable. With him, it was. 

You'd never envisioned yourself with any sort of future. You had always fully expected to leave life as an adolescent, fuelled by hormones and hatred and the special you-brand of self loathing that would only qond up with you in a casket. You tried a few times, slicing at your skin until you passed out from all the red leaking from your veins, but there was always someone to find you. Another time you tried it with trazodone, hoping to ease into a sleep and never come back out, but your body rebelled and you vomited it all back up and stayed silent for three days. Another time you failed because apparently you're too much of a fuck up to have tied a proper noose. Each time you had failed, and nowadays it wouldn't be fair to try again. 

Now you had someone who made you want to give life a chance. There had always been others, people who cared about you and wanted to see you happy, but nobody had ever made life seem to be worth living, aside from saving your friends the pain of watching you die. The way you figure it, maybe the universe was waiting for Dave Strider to come waltzing into your life, face impassive and posture screaming that he owned any place he deemed it fit to walk into. You had hated him at first, the way that sightless gaze would fix upon you from behind his shades, how he would always take some time to say hello like you somehow fucking mattered. You didn't know why he did it at first, but in retrospect it seems painstakingly obvious how he somehow knew exactly what to say. He was watching himself through you; somehow he could feel how much your heart aches, how the sleeves of your shirt were never short, how you'd sit at the lunch table in silence and not bother to go get anything resembling food. Later on in the friendship he would let you gave small glances into how he himself had cracked before, enough that you didn't know anything too incriminating but enough for you to see that there was more to him than that emotionless expression and those rambling words. In return you'd opened up to him. You let him gaze into the abyss and he gazed right back. 

You hadn't known a fraction of the pain he had gone through before; all that you could sense was a kindred soul seeking you out, a glimpse of fragility amongst the stoic mask he wore. It wasn't until you had told him you loved him for the first time that you learned the extent of his damage. He had done well hiding it, after all. 

These days, he hides nothing. Since you both had gotten out of school, he became much more tightly wound. It was the lack of a routine that fitted him with restlessness. He needed something to be focusing on, some way to get out of his own head. You were his rock, how he had been yours. 

But you can feel yourself slipping. 

You can feel your heart going low, at least as far down into your depression as you had been before. Thoughts seemed to constantly nag you, fleeting thing about the glints of blades and how much easier it would be to give up, how he would be better off with someone sane and happy instead of having you drag him down over and over. He bends very easily, but he hasn't broken yet. 

You hope youll be able to pick up the pieces.  
You'll need to stick around long enough for that to happen. 

So instead of doing anything actively to hurt yourself, not even a little scratch, you found other ways of doing so. Refusing food for days at a time, forcing yourself to stay up until your body had no choice but to shut down, drinking at any chance you had. You spend your time trying to fix the boy you're in love with, and ignore the need to fix yourself. 

You can't afford weakness now, not when he needs you so badly.

For now the only choice you have it to grit your teeth and claw your way out of the pit. Maybe you should tell someone, tell him at least, let them know how far youre slipping and that you're scared you won't be able to hang on to the ledge instead of going under. It hits you in waves, like your mind is trying to pull you out into a turbulent sea. You're up the creek without a paddle, and oh look the canoe just split down the fucking middle.

**Author's Note:**

> I probably need to see a therapist or something and stop self projecting


End file.
